For nearly 15 years, George Paton’s draft weekend seat was in the same location: Shotgun to Minnesota Vikings general manager Rick Spielman.
Paton handled the bulk of the trade talks and presented player information, but Spielman made the final call.
Beginning with Thursday night’s first round, Paton will have a new seat. The main seat. The big seat. The hot seat. And the final call will be his.
Hired as the Broncos’ general manager in January, Paton will apply his 24 years of NFL personnel experience to his new team’s draft effort.
“Just being right next to Rick in the decision-making process … it’s been really helpful,” he said in an interview with The Denver Post.
What will be really helpful for Paton is hitting on this year’s first-round pick in general and his first draft in particular.
The Broncos are in the midst of a five-year postseason drought and have been plagued by bad offense. That would suggest selecting a quarterback early. But the practical view could be to add further to the defense and lean on coach Vic Fangio’s play-calling to climb back into playoff contention.
Paton’s draft philosophy — besides his previously expressed desire to add more picks — will crystallize by Saturday night.
“George will try to implement a lot of things and a lot of the out-of-the-box thinking that we were able to do and create (in Minnesota),” Spielman said earlier this year.
Unique situation
Paton enters his first Draft Week as a general manager in an abnormal situation. He inherited the coach (Fangio) … and all three coordinators. He inherited the college and pro scouting staffs … and has made no additions. And he did so while coming from outside the organization.
A canvas of the league showed five general managers who were hired after the coach: Brandon Beane (Buffalo), Scott Fitterer (Carolina), Andrew Berry (Cleveland), Mike Mayock (Las Vegas) and Martin Mayhew (Washington).
But …
Beane was connected to Bills coach Sean McDermott from Carolina and joined forces in Buffalo well ahead of their first training camp. Berry returned to the Browns two weeks after they hired coach Kevin Stefanski. And Fitterer, Mayock and Mayhew work for coach-centric teams (Matt Rhule, Jon Gruden and Ron Rivera, respectively).
Armed with a six-year contract, Paton has final say.
The only notable parallel is Dave Gettleman with Carolina in 2013. Gettleman left the Giants’ front office and inherited Rivera as the Panthers’ coach and did not make any personnel department additions before the draft.
“I don’t see any major holes here,” Gettleman said before his first draft.
Carolina went 12-4 in Year 1, 15-1 in Year 3 (lost to the Broncos in the Super Bowl) and 40-23-1 in five years before owner Jerry Richardson’s mid-summer firing of Gettleman.
The Broncos’ roster Paton inherited in January did — and does — have major holes. One is acutely visible: inconsistent quarterback play. Others less so: team-wide depth issues that, if not addressed, will be magnified with injuries and/or under-performance.
But in the name of efficiency, Paton did what most new general managers do: He kept the Broncos’ processes in place for his first draft.
“We kept the grading scale they had here,” he said. “I didn’t want to change 30 people. It’s easier for me to change. Now, we’ve made a lot of adjustments within that scale in the way we run our meetings and some of the philosophies. We did make a number of changes in the meetings and structures.”
Said former New York Jets general manager and Miami Dolphins executive Mike Tannenbaum: “I know George well (from the scouting circles) and he’s a very thoughtful, methodical guy and I’m sure he’ll be very observant of how they’ve done things and he’ll implement some things he and Rick Spielman did for so many years at a high level in Minnesota.”
Only after the draft will Paton make any departmental changes and introduce his grading scale and scouting manuals. In January, he said he intended to hire a right-hand man like he was to Spielman and Matt Russell was to John Elway.
Now and in the future, though, it appears Paton subscribes to the Every Voice Must Be Heard approach. He calls it an “all-hands-on-deck approach.” The area scout weighs in. Same with the regional and pro scouts. Ditto for the coaching staff. Paton takes in all of the opinions, expresses his and may break any ties.
“Let’s disagree — that’s actually fun,” Tannenbaum said of running the Jets’ draft efforts. “And then let’s go to the tape and make great decisions for us. Let’s not have the loudest voice in the room win.”
In the Jets’ draft room, Tannenbaum said he hung up a phrase he got from the Cleveland Indians: “In God, we trust. For everybody else, we need data.”
Translation?
“I just wanted to make sure we were process-driven and let’s have great debate,” he said.
Debate time is wrapping up for Paton and the Broncos. Next up is making the right process-producing decisions.
Prepare for unexpected
When Tannenbaum was promoted to general manager in early 2006, Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells called to offer advice.
“Coach Parcells said, ‘You’re the head coach when you walk in there. You have to be prepared. You have to be calm. You have to prepare for the unexpected,’” Tannenbaum recalled in a phone interview. “The night before the draft, there it was on the bottom of the ESPN screen — ‘Houston Texans agree to terms with Mario Williams.’ Everybody thought Reggie Bush was going to the Texans. I remember thinking, ‘Coach was right. The draft hasn’t even started and we have an unexpected development.’”
The Jets did fine. They drafted left tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson and center Nick Mangold in the first round — they combined to start 324 games for the franchise.
Tannenbaum’s point for Paton is prepare for any player not named Trevor Lawrence or Zach Wilson to slide. Prepare to have an offer ready if he wants to move up two spots. Prepare if the phone rings and it’s a team in the teens looking to move up. Prepare … for … everything.
In reality, Paton has been preparing for this moment since joining the Chicago Bears as a pro scout in 1998. He is ready.
“I think we filled enough needs in the free agency where we don’t have to reach for a player,” he said. “We have the flexibility to move up. We can move back. We have nine picks — three picks in the first 75 — so we’re really excited.”
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